Is Turkey worried about the outcome of a Cyprus settlement?

Is Turkey worried about the outcome of a Cyprus settlement?

Is Turkey concerned about the outcome of a possible solution to the Cyprus problem? Columnist Basaran Duzgun, writing in Turkish Cypriot daily claims that it is. He writes that:

“The TRNC’s debts for 2015 are said to be 16 billion TL. Its budget for 2016 is four billion 550 million lira. That is, it has a debt approximately four times its annual budget.

Do you know what the bitter aspect of this issue is? The TRNC’s budget cannot even pay the instalments of this debt. Moreover, every year it borrows even more. A state which has a debt four times bigger than its budget is a bankrupt state.

It is always been asked how is it that the TRNC, in spite of the fact that it is bankrupt, continues living as if nothing is happening? The answer is simple. Turkey pays. Turkey fully pays the resulting deficit which has caused bankruptcy and keeps the TRNC alive.

That is, it does not avoid any expense in order to maintain the economic status quo, which it was established in the northern part of Cyprus after 1974. And it is not only economically, it is also administratively and politically.

It permits the Turkish Cypriots to act as a government in an area which it allows them, but before international law, it acts based on the reality that they are its subordinate administration. This means, as you understand that both economic and political sovereignty in the northern part of Cyprus belongs to Turkey. In this sense, it takes a dim view of those who demand more sovereignty and ‘the right of self-administration’. It worries that the Cyprus problem may be solved and Turkish Cypriots may acquire equal sovereignty in the new state to be established.

Because it fears that the Turkish Cypriots with whom it has the relationship as previously described, may agree with the Greek Cypriots and abandon it. Let everyone understand that this is the situation”, he concludes.